NEW YORK — As a fight promoter, UFC president Dana White tends to try his best to put a positive spin on things.

After the week the UFC had, though, White didn’t even try.

“What a s—-y week this is,” White said on Friday night.

You could hardly blame White if he was feeling exhausted by a week that went almost impossibly badly for his company and left him with a UFC 223 main event that features the relatively unknown — to mainstream audiences – Al Iaquinta fighting for the 155 lbs. title. Probably.

It started Sunday, when interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson had to withdraw from his shot at unifying the belt against Khabib Nurmagomedov.

Luckily, featherweight champion Max Holloway agreed to go up a weight-class on six days’ notice and take on Nurmagomedov.

Less luckily, fans woke up Friday morning to the news that the New York State Athletic Commission had deemed Holloway unfit to continue with his weight-cut and compete.

That left the UFC in a desperate situation, and the next couple hours got weird.

There were three lights scheduled to fight at UFC 223 who might be able to challenge Nurmagomedov. There was Iaquinta, who weighed in at 155.2 lbs. on Friday morning, which meant he narrowly missed the championship fight weight cut-off by 0.2 lbs.

There was Anthony Pettis, the former lightweight champion who seemed like the frontrunner until a disagreement over compensation derailed that plan.

Finally, there was Paul Felder, a Philadelphia-bred journeyman who has won five of his last six fights.

Just when it seemed like the UFC had settled on Felder, the New York State Athletic Commission reportedly stepped in again and ruled that they wouldn’t sanction him to fight for the title because he wasn’t in the top-15 of the UFC’s official rankings.

It’s impossible to overstate how ridiculous that is. The UFC’s rankings are voted on by the media, technically, but nobody who regularly covers the sport is involved in the voting process at all. The rankings are widely mocked and dismissed, to use them as a justification for taking away the opportunity of a lifetime for Felder was absurd and cruel.

By the way, all of this lightweight stuff pales in comparison to the headache caused by Conor McGregor, who attacked a bus full of UFC fighters, causing three fights to be pulled from Saturday’s card and the NYPD to press charges against him.

In the end, though, Iaquinta is headlining against Nurmagomedov, who admitted it had been a confusing week for him.

“This week they asked me to fight with five different guys,” Nurmagomedov said. “I asked these guys if they can bring me King Kong and if he can weigh 155 (lbs.), let’s go.”

Iaquinta was equally bemused by his sudden turn of luck.

“What the hell is going on, New York?” Iaquinta asked. “I have no idea, but this is what it’s all about. You get the opportunity, you seize the moment.” While the NYSAC hasn’t officially sanctioned the bout as a title fight because Iaquinta narrowly missed the lightweight title fight weight cut-off, White suggested the UFC would simply declare that he was the champion anyways if he pulls off the upset.

That would be a mess, to be clear, and it could be problematic if the NYSAC were to challenge the UFC’s right to do so. Given the problems the state’s commission has caused this week, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if they decided to do so.

After the week the UFC has had, though, it wouldn’t be much worse than anything the fight game’s biggest promotion has had to deal with.

GONE FOR A WHILE

If you thought the UFC’s bad week couldn’t get any worse, how about a drug suspension to wash it all down? Late Friday afternoon, it was announced that 36-year-old heavyweight Ben Rothwell had accepted a two-year sanction for failing two USADA-administered out-of-competition drug tests last February.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Rothwell was one of the heavyweight division’s rising stars, but it’s hard to imagine he’ll find it easy to rebound from a two-year suspension right as he’s entering his late-30s.

Rothwell had tried to argue that the results were the result of a prescription for testosterone that came from a physician, but USADA ruled that he “didn’t meet the criteria required for obtaining a therapeutic use exemption for a prohibited substance” according to MMAfighting.com.

AROUND THE OCTAGON

There’s been so much ridiculous drama this week, it’s felt at times like some of the more intriguing fights on the UFC 223 card have gone completely under the radar. Pay attention to Montreal’s Olivier Aubin-Mercier taking on Evan Dunham, though. Dunham is ranked in the top-15 in the lightweight division, and beating him would skyrocket Aubin-Mercier into the same range … There was a press conference following Friday evening’s ceremonial weigh-ins. Some guys talked trash, but there was a very real sense in the Barclays Center that everyone was too exhausted from this hectic week to really get worked up about anything.

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